Goodbyes in the Larder
by this-zombie-life
Summary: A full seven years after the Fifth Blight, Sebastion Cousland is forced to say goodbye to his most faithful friend. Rated T for character death and subsequent sadness. Featuring MCousland, Alistair, and Dog.


Author's Note - Alright, this is a tear-jerker. Fair warning. Non-slash, so don't read it that way. They're best friends, not gay. Also, I haven't stopped working on _Perspectives_. I've been battling some horrible writer's block, though, so I started replaying the game again...and lo! here comes the Muse. This Warden is the same as in that fic.

Disclaimer:  
~ I don't own anything, aside from my own character. Don't sue me, you won't get much. I'm open to being hired, though. Just sayin'.  
~ I apologize in advance for any typos. It's 1:30 AM when I'm posting this, and I wrote this in the span of an hour and a half.

Goodbyes in the Larder

It had been seven full years since the Fifth Blight had burned through Fereldan and the Archdemon fell dead on the top of Fort Drakon. Life in the castle bustled much in the same way it had the day before, and the day before that. Pages came and went, nobles visited and left, and Alistair – Grey Warden, King of Fereldan, and resident master-at-sarcasm – simply couldn't be bothered with it. He had much more important matters on his mind, namely the well-being of his best friend and Chancellor.

"You! There, yes, you!"

Alistair's voice carried down the hall, and a young woman stopped. "Yes, my King?"

"Have you seen Chancellor Cousland? He wasn't at breakfast." Alistair finally recognized the woman – one of the new ladies-in-waiting that his wife had gotten, since she had found out that she was with child.

The woman shook her head, clearly racking her brain. "I'm sorry, mi'lord, but I don't know. The maids have mentioned seeing him walking his old Mabari around the marketplace, but that's all I've heard. Regardless, the Queen asked that I deliver this message to yo–"

Alistair nodded and strode off, the maid forgotten in his wake. _I should have seen this, blast it! Why didn't I notice? _His mental depreciation of himself soon came to halt as he arrived outside the doors to the castle's kitchen. Steadying himself, he pushed the door open and walked through. The two elvish servants, along with the cook, huddled in a far corner away from the larder. Alistair raised an eyebrow, his question unspoken, and the cook nodded. Motioning them out, he moved to the door and knocked.

"Sebastion? You in there? It's me, uh, you know, the King-that-didn't-want-to-be?"

A small chuckle came through the door. "I know who you are, Alistair. You're older than me, you'll go senile long before I will."

Alistair bit back a laugh. _Maybe things aren't so bad?_ "Do you mind if I come in?"

The answering silence stretched on for nearly a minute, before the other Warden answered. "The door isn't locked."

Alistair opened it slowly, and couldn't quite manage to hide his gasp at what he saw. Sebastion Cousland – best friend to the King, Chancellor and Hero of Fereldan, and Grey Warden – looked utterly helpless. He sat on a stack of burlap and cloth sacks, and his Mabari hound Scout laid near him with his head on his lap. Scout opened his eyes slowly, and his bobbed tail wagged slowly twice when he recognized Alistair. The King bent, scratching him behind the ears. Scout whined happily, and repositioned his head on Sebastion's lap.

"Might as well sit down, Alistair. No need for you to be standing."

Alistair pulled a small stepping-stool over to the pair, and eased himself down onto it. His eyes found his friend's, and Sebastion's answered his unasked question. _Oh, Maker._

Sebastion ran his hand slowly up and down the length of Scout's back, and (resumed, Alistair assumed) relieving old stories with the hound. "Remember that bar fight, I was maybe twenty? Those travelers from Antiva were passing through, and brought that game with cups and dice. The thought I had to be cheating, and went crazy; flipping the table, smashing bottles, everything. You just tackled one, snarled, and the others ran like I did when Nan had that wooden spoon she used to spank me with."

The dog stretched his leg out behind him, and let out a small _whuff_. Alistair thought about speaking, but clamped his mouth shut. _This isn't your place, stupid. Just be here for him_.

Sebastion gently rubbed Scout's ears between his fingers, helping the dog relax. The hound's muzzle wrinkled up in pain for a second, then slowly relaxed back. "I know, bud, I know. You'll be fine, just take some deep breaths." Sebastion's voice cracked as he spoke, and Alistair noticed two small drops of moisture hit Scout's fur. _When did he get so much grey in his coat?_

"How about the night we broke into that merchant's house, since I had left Father's favorite belt in his daughter's closet when I hid from her parents? You crept down the hall in front of me, making sure nobody was awake...I snuck in her room, grabbed the belt, and was almost out of there when the merchant woke up. I looked at you, you looked at me, and we both just ran for it! I've never seen a man that large move so fast..." Sebastion's voice trailed off into laughter, and Alistair could have sworn Scout was smiling.

Alistair cleared his throat. "You two certainly had some adventures, huh?"

Sebastion looked up, and Alistair had only seen the raw pain in his eyes once before. The morning after Morrigan had taken her leave, Alistair had found him standing on a balcony watching the sunrise. Sebastion had turned, face stained with tears, and asked if Alistair thought she was watching the same sunrise and thinking of him. Then, as now, he had been at a total loss for what to say. _Think! He's your friend, you idiot!_

"You know," Alistair said, "I remember a night in camp when Scout made off with Sten's cookies. You remember?"

Sebastion nodded, eyes turning back down to his faithful friend. Scout's breathing had grown even more shallow, and he hadn't opened his eyes for several minutes.

Alistair continued, unsure what else to do. "I had just finished the fire, and you were bargaining with that dwarf merchant about something. All of a sudden, I hear Sten leap to his feet and start shouting in that weird language of his – 'Akimba-kalabaha-bimbam-something' – and Scout is rushing past me with a bag clamped in his jaws and all I can think is 'Oh, cookies!'"

The two men broke into laughter; not the riotous kind that had often accompanied nights spent in taverns while on the road while building bonds, but the soft and even kind that reveals the bond that already exists. Sebastion nodded. "Yeah, I remember. Scout just ran circles around him, didn't you?" He scratched behind Scout's ears. "In the end, Sten just sat back down on that log of his and went back to meditating. He always bought double batches from then on."

Scout pawed at the air, and neither men were sure of what he wanted. "What, bud? What do you need? I'm here." Sebastion leaned down, his forehead resting on the Mabari's thick neck.

Alistair scooted forward on the stool. The hound's heavy paw landed on his leg, and Scout stopped pawing the air. Tentative, he set one of his hands on top of the paw.

"You're fine. His eyesight has gotten a lot worse fairly quickly...he likes to touch people more, now," Sebastion said. He set a hand on his lap palm-up, matching Alistair. Scout moved his other paw to cover it, and shifted his body back and forth. "This reminds me of those nights right after Ostagar, you know? Just the three of us and Morrigan, before anyone else joined up and way before I ever convinced her to come sit by the fire with us."

Alistair smiled, his eyes distant. "We were running for our lives, desperate to get to Lothering. Didn't matter to him, though. Play time always came right after dinner, and darkspawn be damned because we were going to play fetch!"

Scout raised his head, painfully slow. His eyes opened, and finally focused on Alistair. The Mabari seemed to nod, then raised his eyes to Sebastion. The man lowered his head back down, and the dog licked his nose gently. "Yeah, I love you too," he whispered. The hound set his head back down on Sebastion's lap, and drew another deep breath. It was his last – the hound's great frame finally relaxed, and Scout's head didn't raise up again.

"Scout? No, bud...you can't leave me like this. Please; please! DON'T!" Sebastion bent down, his forehead pressed against the dog's own. "Come back...come back." The man's frame was wracked with sobs, and the room filled with the sounds of grief. Alistair reached out, and set his free hand on his friend's shoulder. "Come back," Sebastion whispered again.

Alistair blinked away tears, and gripped his friend's shoulder more firmly. "I'm here, Sebastion." The raven-haired man managed to nod through his sobs, as the two men sat and mourned a friend.

The lady-in-waiting from earlier in the morning slowed as she passed the kitchen. There was a fairly large group of people in the hall outside the doorway, especially for this time of morning. She walked up, and when most recognized her they scampered off back to work. Even if this new Queen was no slavedriver the way that Anora had been, the status that she enjoyed was the same.

On a hunch, she stepped inside the kitchen. She looked around, and none of the regular servants were working – even the cook was gone. She peeked her head into the larder, and immediately bit down whatever remark had been forming in the back of her mind. The King was sitting beside the Chancellor, hand on his shoulder, with the great form of an old Mabari between them. The Chancellor was openly weeping, and the moment felt so private that the woman had a sudden sense of rudeness for even accidently stumbling upon it. She eased out of the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. The affairs of state could wait for one day, she reasoned. There were simply some things that took precedent.

*** One Week Later ***

A light drizzle came down from an overcast sky as Fergus Cousland, Teyrn of Highever, walked through the graveyard's gates. It was the general custom of the Chantry to cremate the deceased, to mirror the death of Andraste, and as such graves were never given much attention in Fereldan. That had changed significantly in the months after the Fifth Blight, given the high numbers of deceased that families in Highever had lost due to Howe's treachery and the darkspawn. Fergus had, in conjunction with Highever's chantry, sectioned off a piece of land for memorial markers to those who had fallen. While it technically went against the Chantry's rules, the local Revered Mother had lost two nephews to the Blight and quietly gave her approval to Fergus' idea.

Given the rain, the graveyard was empty save for one person. Fergus walked up beside the man, and wrapped an arm around him. "Figured I'd find you here, little brother. You'll catch cold, being out in the rain like this."

Sebastion nodded, his mind elsewhere. "You don't think Mother and Father would have minded, do you?"

Fergus looked down at the markers. The first was for their father, Bryce Cousland. The second bore the name of their mother, Eleanor. The last, much newer than the previous two, bore the name of his younger brother's faithful Mabari. "No, I don't think they would mind. I'm sure Scout is probably begging the Maker Himself for table scraps as we speak."

Sebastion chuckled, wiping moisture from his eyes that had nothing to do with the rain. "Thank you for this, Fergus. I didn't know what else to do."

The elder man nodded, steering Sebastion gently away from the grave. "It's fine, Sebastion. I wish I could do more. Now, come on in...our King had told me that you've written some new music for that piano Mother had, and I'd love to hear it."

The pair slowly made their way back to the city gates of Highever, and Sebastion saw Alistair waiting. Just as they arrived, the drizzle finally ended and the sky broke open in bright azure. Sebastion took a last glance back, and stopped dead in his tracks. Fergus took two more steps before he realized he had left his little brother behind.

"Look, Fergus..." Sebastion said, his voice almost too low to hear. The light had broken into a rainbow, and it had settled directly on the graveyard they had left.

Fergus' mouth dropped open. "If we were still standing there, we wouldn't have seen it at all."

Alistair walked up, joining the two brothers. He threw an arm around Sebastion's shoulders. "Looks like the icing on cookies, doesn't it?"

"You're right, Alistair." For the first time since saying goodbye to his most faithful friend, Sebastion honestly smiled. "It does look like cookie icing."


End file.
